


Not A Dream After All

by madnessandbrilliance



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Actor Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - High School, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Crew Keith (Voltron), Crushes, Cuban Lance (Voltron), First Kiss, Gay Keith (Voltron), I'm a Jock!Lance stan but Theater!Lance is valid too, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Les Misérables References, M/M, Mutual Pining, Theater AU, after months of putting this off, broganes, its finally finished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 18:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20362780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessandbrilliance/pseuds/madnessandbrilliance
Summary: The point of all this is that Keith has many valid, good, reasonable causes for signing up for theater as an elective and volunteering for stage crew. Many great academic reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the bronze-skinned boy flaunting a large plastic skull in one hand at the center of the stage, loudly proclaiming “the pangs of despised love, the law's delay,” in a complete over-dramatization in front of a giggling audience of fellow actors.--Or, Keith and Lance do high school theater together, and Keith develops a highly embarrassing crush.





	Not A Dream After All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fauxghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxghost/gifts).

> Here is a very, very belated Secret Santa fic for my dear friend [Sher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxghost/pseuds/fauxghost) as part of the Coke Is It! Twitter gift exchange. Yes, I know it's August. I have no excuse but that of academia. 
> 
> A special, special thanks to [the-noble-idiot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1004_Angel/pseuds/the-noble-idiot) for being my brave and resolute beta, and always giving me the push I needed to get stuff done. Noble, I literally don't know what I would do without you.
> 
> Can't tell you the relief I feel to finally have this done. Please enjoy this goofy little oneshot!

* * *

So, one thing needs to be clear:

Keith has a lot of reasons to be here.

He needs the credit, for one. It’s an easy, albeit busy, way to get an elective credit that he’ll need to graduate from this shithole of a high school. He already has the credit from the intro art class he’d taken—but they never said you could have _too_ many credits, and a diverse resume is key, right?

That’s what Shiro always said when he talked about what colleges were looking for in students. “They pay more attention to well-rounded students with a background in a lot of interests, Keith,” he said. Which was another reason Keith is doing this, actually. It gives him stuff to add to his college resumé. That’s important, right? He can now say he spent hours (mostly) voluntarily adjusting lights and props and designing sets and _all sorts_ of stuff that he can twist into something that makes him out to be an organized and confident worker with (vague) electrical skills. 

And—_and! --_ doing this gives him something to fill his dreary afternoons with. Besides tae kwon do. And his job at the movie theatre. And his homework. And—okay so maybe he’s a little busy and doesn’t _really _need something else to do but Keith is someone who likes to keep himself occupied. So what?

The point of all this—the _point_—is that Keith has many valid, good, reasonable causes for signing up for theater as an elective and volunteering for stage crew. Many great academic reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the bronze-skinned boy flaunting a large plastic skull in one hand at the center of the stage, loudly proclaiming “_the pangs of despised love, the law's delay_**,” **in a complete over-dramatization in front of a giggling audience of fellow actors.

“You’re staring again,” says a familiar voice directly into his ear, and Keith jumps, feeling his face twist from an embarrassingly fond smile to a disgruntled scowl that probably looks more natural on his face than whatever… _lovestruck_ expression he was making.

“No, I’m not,” he snaps back, quickly dropping his gaze to the floor where he had been sorting various lighting wires. A glint from a pair of glasses flashes in his eyes as Pidge leans over to continue aiming her shit-eating grin at him.

“You totally were. Man, I used to think it was bad before, but it seems like you’ve just gotten worse since the winter play. Did something about seeing him in tights do it for you?”

“I’m going to murder you,” Keith decides, glaring at a seemingly impossible knot between a red and blue wire. He very pointedly ignores the heating of his cheeks.

“Shiro and Matt would never let you.” His friend leans back on her heels, landing on her butt with a huff as she reaches out to grab one of the wires on the floor between them.

“Matt would _help_ me.”

Pidge sticks her tongue out.

“I’m serious though,” she says, squinting at a label before tossing the wire aside. “You’ve been like this for months now-- ever since last year’s spring musical, at _least_. Are you ever going to say anything to him about it?”

Keith barks out a laugh. It’s louder than he intended it to be, ringing through the auditorium and drawing a few gazes, but he doesn’t flinch back despite the back of his neck prickling with warmth, instead fixing Pidge with a look. “Hilarious.”

Pidge rolls her eyes, and tosses aside another assorted bundle of wires. She’s organized three different bundles based on which equipment they belong to, in the several minutes he’s been struggling with the knotted red and blue wires. “I’m not joking. I mean, it’s been months since you signed up for crew — for him, I might add — and you haven’t even made out in the Supply Closet of Bad Decisions yet.”

“First of all--” Keith brandishes the knotted wires at her like a sword “—I didn’t sign up for crew for _him_. I signed up because Shiro suggested it.” This was true; Garrison High was extremely limited on their art elective options, and once he’d finished the solitary art class they had to offer, Shiro had pointed that the theatre crew sometimes needed artists for painting and drawing for the sets. It was a fun and creative way for Keith to continue making art. He just happened to like it, and later stuck with it for… different reasons. “_Second _of all, we’re friends. I’m not trying to do anything with him.”

It’s Pidge’s turn to let out a barking laugh. “Oh, really?”

“Listen, you little—”

“What’s so funny?”

Keith’s mouth snaps shut and he feels his heart jump up at the familiar voice.

“Oh, _hey_, Lance,” Pidge’s snide voice breaks through his internal monologue of _why does he look so pretty with his hair all messed up and curly this is so _unfair _I didn’t ask for this_.“ We were just talking about you.”

Keith shoots her a wide and alarmed glare—he really is going to murder her the second they get off campus—but he’s startled into looking back at Lance when he feels his warm body sink down next to Keith, so close their knees are touching.

“Only good things, right, Mullet?” Lance winks at Keith, leaning into his space a little, eyes twinkling under an arched brow.

“Nah,” Keith looks down at the wires on the floor because if he keeps looking at Lance he’s convinced he actually will turn into a tomato. His voice remarkably steady and somewhat aloof considering he’s certain he’s physically burning where Lance’s crossed legs brush his. “Just the truth.”

He vaguely hears Lance let out a loud and fake-offended cry, but he’s busy glancing back up to glare daggers at Pidge, who looks like Christmas came early (which makes very little sense considering the Holts are Jewish). Lance is going on about how the truth means they’re probably saying _amazing_ things about him, since he’s _amazing_, and he’s gesticulating so wildly with his hands Keith has to dodge a couple times, and Keith might honestly be a little in trouble with how endearing he finds that.

At some point he glances back down just in time to make eye contact with Lance’s sparkling, narrowed gaze, and he can’t help the twitch of his lips up into a smile. Pidge smirks at him from Lance’s other side. _Ugh_.

~~~~~ 

They hadn’t _always _been like this.

It’s interesting to think about, really, how much their relationship had evolved since the moment Keith had first walked through the theater doors and immediately been accosted with a loud, shrill voice exclaiming, “Is that a _mullet?”_

From the very beginning, the two of them had gone head to head. Part of it, Keith will admit, was his fault. He had been so nervous on that first day, in a space he was unfamiliar with around people he’d never interact with in his time at the Garrison, and there was a cute boy with a blinding smile and a loud, open laugh. He’d immediately gone on the defensive, because that was just what he _did_.

When Lance had jumped on Keith and offered his help, for being new and “not knowing the ways of the theater” or some shit like that, Keith had snapped and said he was fine, brusque enough that it could be considered rude. And Lance had certainly taken it that way, bristling immediately.

After that it was endless snide commentary, Lance always stepping in and telling Keith how he should do things and what the theater traditions were and acting like he was superior just because he’d been in the theater department for one year longer. Making comments about everything from to Keith’s hair to his clothing (particularly the fingerless gloves he liked to wear)... all sorts of inane bullshit like that. It drove Keith up the wall, riled up his temper, and almost always left him taking the bait and biting back. Shiro had encouraged Keith to clear things up and apologize, but Lance never gave him the chance to, and Keith always, _always_ reacted to his taunts without thinking. Something about Lance made him want to keep up, or beat him, or… something.

It didn’t help that despite all of the qualities that Keith convinced himself he couldn’t stand, like Lance’s bravado and loud charm and inappropriate sense of humor, Keith still found himself staring when the other boy wasn’t looking.

The fall play of sophomore year had been interesting, to say the least. They’d put on Clue, and Keith had been surprised at how much he’d loved painting the sets and helping with transitions. Sitting through rehearsals wasn’t bad either. He quickly befriended the other stagehands as they bonded over set building and the drama of the actors, and he even got to know some of the actors too, like the theater teacher’s all-star niece, Allura, and her best friend, Romelle. At first, Lance and Keith’s issues carried over. But as the cast list came out and rehearsals intensified, they found themselves too busy to argue. Lance was cast as Professor Plum, something he was very excited about and made sure _everyone_ knew. Keith became preoccupied learning the ropes of crew duties during plays and building the set.

Maybe it was that brief reprieve from their tension that cause Keith’s guard to go down. Or maybe it was the stress of Keith’s first opening night, everyone scrambling around backstage and dealing with last minute wardrobe malfunctions and mic problems. Everything was loud and frazzled, which is why Keith decided to find a moment of quiet, why he didn’t notice a particular voice missing from the noise.

Keith found himself sliding away from the hustle and bustle for a moment, intending to only be gone long enough to catch his breath, not long enough to be missed. He ducked out of backstage, through the black box, and out to the hallway behind both rooms that acted as impromptu storage. Deep breath in, deep breath out, eyes closed. And then he heard it.

A quiet, shuddering sigh, barely audible murmurs coming from behind one of the boxes piled up a few feet away.

Curiosity got the better of him. He tiptoed quietly and paused just before them, then felt his jaw fall open when he finally peered behind.

“Lance?”

The other boy’s head jerked up to meet his gaze. He was leaning against the wall, hugging his knees, in Professor Plum’s maroon suit. His eyes were red-rimmed, expression pinched. The minute he seemed to process who said his name, his mouth turned even further down. “Ugh. I don’t need this right now.”

Keith felt a flush of anger that quickly faded as Lance dropped his head onto his knees. “What?”

“Go away, Mullet.” Lance’s voice came muffled from where they were pressed against his legs.

“What are you doing back here?” Keith asked, ignoring him.

“I’m going over my lines. Now leave me alone.”

“Shouldn’t you be with the rest of the cast?”

“I’ll be there in a second.”

“Curtain’s in like an hour, aren’t there things you need to be—”

“Keith,” Lance cut him off, voice suddenly edging on desperate. It was so raw that it shut Keith up immediately. “I know, okay? I get it. I know the schedule and all the things I need to be doing, I know how this works, but I need you to just—I’ll be there in a second, alright? Just… just stop.”

Something was different. Keith took him the lines on his brow and his mouth, the downturn of his lips, his clenched fists. He noticed the slight tremor that ran through Lance’s body. And it clicked. “You’re nervous.”

Lance looked away.

Keith lowered himself to the floor so that he was crouched in front of him. “That’s why you’re hiding back here, right? You’re nervous about the play?”

“No,” Lance said, but it wasn’t convincing.

Keith huffed a bit, unsure of how to behave. They weren’t exactly friends. He didn’t know how to comfort people, much less people who hated him. But he wasn’t an _asshole_, and Lance was clearly upset. He decided to try encouraging their usual banter. “What happened to all the bragging? I thought you had this part in the bag. Didn’t you say you were gonna get the loudest applause out of the whole cast?”

Instead of stepping up to the challenge like Keith had hoped, Lance’s expression closed off. “Sure. Laugh it up, Kogane.”

“No, I—sorry. I’m… I’m not laughing at you. I just don’t… understand, I guess. You kinda seemed like you thrived on this.”

Lance mumbled something Keith couldn’t quite hear. “What?”

“I said this is my first big role in a play.”

Keith felt a startled laugh bubble up in his chest but he forced it down. That wouldn’t go over well. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, _really_,” Lance snapped, and Keith fought back a flare of his temper at the snark. He didn’t regret it when a moment later Lance sighed and looked at the floor. “Sorry, I… Sorry. I’m just…” _Scared_. He wouldn’t say it, but the insinuation was there, enough that Keith recognized it for what it was.

Keith gave a slow nod. “That makes sense. But… I thought you’d been doing theater for a while. How is this your first…”

Lance shrugged. “I always had really small ensemble or little speaking lines that I didn’t worry about too much. This is the first time I had a bigger role.” He bit his lip and looked down. “I didn’t know anyone would find me back here.”

“Sorry,” Keith said again. He actually did feel bad, intruding on Lance’s space like this. It was a strange feeling. “I didn’t know you’d be back here.”

They both fell into silence. Keith watched Lance fidget, his hands shaking. After a moment, Keith scooted over to sit next to him on the wall. Lance paused. “What are you doing?”

“Keeping you company. I dunno if you want to talk, but I figure it’s not good to get in your own head when you’re about to do something like this. Isn’t your sister in the play too? Do you want me to get her?”

“Yeah she is. But Vero’s been doing this for ages, I don’t think she gets nervous anymore. I don’t want her to worry about me.” Lance watched him, eyes wary. “You can stay,” he added, a little nervously. “If you want.”

Keith shrugged and looked at the wall across from them. A moment later Lance turned to look ahead too.

They didn’t speak for the next few minutes. Keith could feel Lance trembling, but eventually it settled down, until Lance was just fidgeting a little more than usual. After ten minutes, around the time Keith was starting to think he was going to have to encourage Lance to get up and get moving so they would be able to join the rest of the others in preparing for opening night, Lance rolled to his feet, dusted his pants off, took a deep breath, then turned and held his hand out towards Keith. Keith stared at it for a moment before taking at and letting Lance hoist him up.

They let go and stared at each other for a moment. Something in Keith’s stomach twisted. He ignored it. “Thanks,” Lance suddenly said. He gave Keith a small smile. The twisting returned, and Keith responded with an awkward shrug.

“It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing though, really. Keith could tell it wasn’t from the way Lance re-entered the black box with his head a little taller, shoulders a little straighter. He could tell from the way that Lance strutted across the stage at his entrance, the way he delivered his lines, the small glances he threw Keith’s way every time he was backstage. Keith barely had time to think, with all the work he had to do changing scenery and handing off props, but he didn’t miss it.

It wasn’t quite friendship, but there was understanding there that wasn’t there before. After that opening night, things were more civil between them. It wasn’t that they didn’t argue, but when they bickered it was with less animosity. Lance took things less personally. Keith began understanding Lance’s bravado a little better.

They started talking more during their theater period. Lance would smile at him in the hallway. Around December, Lance joined him at the lunch table when the cafeteria was too crowded. Keith finished the semester wondering if this was what could be considered a tentative friendship.

But the spring musical… that’s where things really changed. By that point, Keith considered whatever was going on between him and Lance to be friendship, if Lance’s chattiness was any indication. They talked often, their bickering now falling closer to “playful teasing” than actual arguing.

The theater department was doing Into the Woods, and Keith spent most of the time creating scenery and designing the set; Mr. Wimbledon had caught on to his artistic skill and utilized it immediately. Lance had been cast as Jack, an even bigger role than before, this time with _singing_. He hadn’t even known Lance could sing.

He couldn’t stop himself from wanting to hear it. His new friend Pidge had assured him they would get to hear all the actors sing more than enough times during rehearsals, but he had been hoping it was going to be sooner rather than later.

He hadn’t gotten to hear until three weeks into the rehearsal period. They’d finally finished painting props in the black box and were working on the backdrop onstage, around the same time that the actors were running the songs for the first time. Lance had no sign of nervousness when he’d begun to sing—he’d been in his element, eyes twinkling, voice ringing through the theatre—and Keith had found himself frozen, paintbrush dripping onto the cardboard tree he’d been painting.

He hadn’t even realized he’d stopped until Acxa had nudged him, and then he’d looked away, face warm and stomach twisting again, in that same, odd way it had the opening night of the first play.

By the time their junior year rolled around, Keith had signed up for theater without hesitation.

They remained close throughout the fall. Keith helped Lance read through some of his lines when they did Much Ado About Nothing (and as much as he would like to deny it, _yes_, the Shakespearean tights did do wonders for him), and he felt himself falling harder. Now he’s in much too deep.

He’s pretty sure the entire department knows about his feelings for Lance, which isn’t a surprise since he thinks he’s pretty damn obvious with his staring. He isn’t sure if Lance knows and is keeping it to himself so as to not hurt Keith’s feelings, or if he’s just oblivious. Keith can’t help but hope for the latter.

~~~~~

Keith is reading a book for English class when he hears the loud exclamation followed by a rush of chatter. He looks up, briefly considers maybe trying to go investigate what has the rest of the theater class so excited, but then Acxa, a senior crew member with the same deadpan resignation to the rest of the crew’s antics as him, walks into the black box. She slumps beside him with a carefully neutral expression, and Keith looks back down at his book. “What’s up?”

“They just announced the musical we’re doing this semester and _some_ people are getting really excited,” Acxa sighs, and as disinterested as her face appears is Keith hears a note of fondness in her voice that is all too familiar to him.

“Some people meaning the McClains,” he clarifies, not bothering to phrase it as a question. If the loud chatter in the other room wasn’t enough to give it away, Acxa’s soft smile at a certain ringing laugh was more than enough to confirm it. She gives him a look. He shrugs, and she runs a finger through her hair, rueful.

“The enthusiasm runs in the family, I guess.”

Keith feels a note of sympathy for her. Though they aren’t related, there’s a running joke in the theater department that they’re long lost siblings. Okay, yeah there’s a similarity in their chins and the way they arch their brows at a bad joke, but perhaps the biggest indicator of that likely-nonexistent relation is their cool demeanor that almost always falls apart when face-to-face with certain blue eyes and charming smiles.

She seems to be on a better track to winning over the heart of the object of her affections. He’d caught Veronica McClain giving Acxa suspiciously intent looks while the latter was distracted going over lighting instructions, and the two were often found laughing over homework assignments on the theater class’ less busy days. When Keith had pointed this out to her she had shrugged, a small smile on her face, and he’d raised an eyebrow. “I thought lesbians aren’t supposed to have their shit together,” he’d said, and she’d shoved him and said he was just jealous. He hadn’t denied it.

“So, what’s the musical?” he asks, changing the subject. He closes the book, holding his page with a finger. He cares less about the production itself and more about his own job now that they know what they’ll be doing. Set design is his favorite part of working crew.

Acxa runs a hand through her hair, and raises an eyebrow. “I hope you’ve got practice painting Parisian scenery,” she hints. “There’s gonna be a lot of it.”

Keith’s brow furrows. “So—”

“Les Mis!”

Both Keith and Acxa glance up at the figure that breaks through the door with a loud bang and sprints towards them. There’s a squeaking sound as sneakers skid to a stop and Lance windmills his arms to keep himself from falling forward face-first. Once it’s clear he’s not going to pitch into the ground, he turns to the two crew members sitting on the floor and points a finger at Keith that has the boy jumping a little and wondering what he did. “_We’re doing Les Mis!_”

“Did—Lance, did you come sprinting in here just to tell me that?”

Lance completely ignores Keith’s question, hopping up and down excitedly and clapping. “We’re doing _quiznacking Les Mis! _Oh my God!”

Keith sees Acxa nod next to him. “That was basically the reaction over there too,” she sighs.

“Isn’t that a bit dark for a high school production?” Keith asks, and immediately regrets it, not because he suddenly changes his mind or anything but because Lance drops to his knees, grabs him by the shoulders, and says, dead quietly, “You take that back right now.”

Keith splutters. “I’m just saying it’s—”

“Bup-bup-bup-bup-bup!” Lance waggles his finger in Keith’s face, shaking the shoulder he’s still holding on to. “You’re not ruining this for me, Kogane. I’ve been singing Empty Chairs at Empty Tables since I was seven years old-- I’m playing Marius if it kills me!”

Keith is having no small amount of trouble thinking straight (hah) with Lance a few inches away from him, leaning into his space, and a quick glance to the right shows that Acxa won’t be of any help if the smirk on her face is any evidence. He swallows and carefully puts his hands on Lance’s biceps, pushing him back gently. “Okay… you realize you don’t even know if you’re gonna get the role, right? When are auditions?”

“Oh, I’m gonna get it.” The glint in Lance’s eyes is almost predatory. “Mark my words, Keith. I’m gonna play Marius.”

The confidence in his tone has Keith smiling despite himself. “You sound pretty sure of yourself. Isn’t that what you said about playing Claudio last semester?”

Lance scoffs. “That’s different. I was born to play Marius. Claudio was like, I dunno, a passing…”

“Fancy?”

“Nah, he’s kinda dull, honestly.”

“No, I mean—”

Lance continues and Keith cuts off. It’s just too… _endearing_. “Wanting to play Claudio was just a _phase_, Marius is more like a lifetime obsession.”

Keith snorts. Lance grins at Keith’s dry response and Keith feels a hand squeeze his shoulder. He suddenly realizes he’s still gripping onto Lance’s biceps, holding him in place. They’re—they’re holding _onto_ each other at this point, and Keith drops his hands quickly, feeling his face prickle with a flush. Lance releases his shoulder too, coughing a bit.

“And besides, Benedick was way more fun to play than _Claudius_,” He says, leaning back onto his heels and then plopping to seat himself on the floor, scooting around a bit until he’s next to Keith and leaning against the wall too. “He had all those witty one liners and stuff. And he was a charming bachelor and all that,” Lance smirks. “So it didn’t take any acting from me.”

Keith just raises an eyebrow.

Acxa clears her throat and Keith is abruptly reminded that he and Lance are, in fact, not alone. She still looks disinterested, but Keith knows her well enough to recognize the quirk to her mouth that hints at amusement at his expense. “Did you hear when auditions were? I left before it was announced.”

Lance perks up like a puppy. “Next week! We get until next Tuesday to pick a scene to read and a solo, callbacks and stuff happen Thursday, and we find out Friday.”

“Coran likes his quick turnarounds,” Acxa nods. Keith wrinkles his nose.

“Do we get to start painting the sets soon, then?” he asks. His mind is already whirling with ideas and his hand itches to put it on paper. Lance shrugs.

“I dunno. But if you promise to help me read lines, I’ll go grab you a notebook so you can draw whatever it is you’re thinking about right now.”

Keith starts, looking at Lance with wide eyes and feeling his cheeks flush. Lance doesn’t look like he’s said anything out of the ordinary—in fact, he looks like he’s still waiting for a response. Keith clears his throat. “How did you know I was—”

“You had your thinking face on,” Lance says matter-of-factly. “You get a little wrinkle between your eyebrows when you’re thinking hard about something. And your fingers were twitching.” Lance reaches out and almost absentmindedly brushes the back of Keith’s hand lightly with his fingers. “When you’re thinking about drawing your fingers twitch a little like they’re trying to hold an invisible pencil.”

Keith hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels. “I—uh. Didn’t know I did that.”

Lance suddenly turns pink. “Yeah, you—it’s a weird thing you do.” He gives a nervous laugh then pushes off the wall, hoisting himself to his feet. “Did you, um, want me to grab it? In exchange for helping me out?”

“Sure,” Keith smiles up at him, shoving the questions about _just how much Lance was looking at him to notice that_ into the back of his mind. He’d worry about that another day.

Lance gives him a quick nod and scurries off. Keith watches him go for a moment, until the door shuts behind him, then turns back to Acxa, who is looking at him with raised brows. He shoves his book aside. He’s lost his place, but that’s okay—he’s thinking about set design now anyways. “What?” He asks, defensive.

“You’re both idiots,” she says helpfully. He shoves her.

“I haven’t done anything,” he points out. Acxa rolls her eyes. “I haven’t! I’m just gonna help him read his lines, anyone could do that.”

“Yeah.” Acxa nods. “Anyone could. Including his sister, who is _literally_ auditioning for the same play. Or his best friend, who does the light, sound _and_ set engineering and is always around anyways. But instead he asked _you_ to help him.”

Keith just looks at her blankly. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “And they say _lesbians_ are the useless ones.”

Keith frowns as Acxa rolls to her feet and shakes her head at him. He doesn’t get it, but whatever. He’s got a set design to worry about, and feelings to shove to the recesses of his mind.

~~~~~

“Okay, so I start with this, then you’ll sing—”

“I’m gonna stop you right there. I’ m_ not _singing.”

“Keith. Buddy. My man. This is a musical, you literally _have _to sing.”

“_You _have to sing. I’ll just read the lines so you know when to come in.”

“But that’s no fun!”

“Sucks. Now hold this corner while I paint. Page forty-four, you’re about to come in—”

_“Yeah, yeah, _I know what I’m doing—”

_“Cosette, now I remember—_”

~~~~~

Lance gets the part.

Keith isn’t surprised. He’d practiced with Lance for hours in the day leading up to the audition, after all, and knew how good he sounded.

When the cast list had been posted, Keith had lingered behind the swarm of eager theater kids, scrambling to get a glimpse of the sheet. Lance towered above most of them—he hit a growth spurt _twice_ since Keith had known him—and he was clearly using it to his advantage. It had only been a few seconds of neck craning, a few seconds where Keith pushed down the fluttering nervousness in his heart and reminded himself it wasn’t _him_ trying to get the part, before Lance had burst into a triumphant “Yes!” and thrown himself out of the crowd. And… launched himself at Keith.

The hug had caught him off guard. The laughter in his ear and squeezing of his shoulders had mentally broken him. He’d barely gotten enough brainpower to lift his arms around Lance and squeeze back, once, before Lance had pulled away, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, to go find his sister, leaving Keith to carefully collect his faculties enough to trudge away from the crowd of theater kids and try to slow his heart rate down.

So… yeah, things turned out pretty great. Rehearsals pick up again with the familiar intensity Keith has grown accustomed to when it comes to new shows. To his (quiet) chagrin, he and Lance don’t see much of each other for a while, with Keith directing set design and Lance preparing for the role. Even their free periods and lunch hour gets filled with work, leaving Keith to cling to the small smiles and occasional winks Lance sends his way between tasks. Keith may or may not be going through withdrawals. It’s kind of pathetic.

There are also the few moments he gets a break from working on the set to watch the actors rehearse. It’s fascinating, really, how they’re able to switch into their roles so quickly and effectively, going from laughing and cracking jokes and playing goofy warm up games, to becoming French revolutionaries and heartbroken prostitutes. Keith still doesn’t know how Coran managed to get the play approved by the administration of the school. (“We had to cut a lot of the heavier stuff,” Veronica had said, tapping a sharp nail against the printout of her script. “So it’s mostly just a lot of hints of it. I don’t mind cutting Fantine’s assault scene though. It’s way too much”).

The set gets built. Fight scenes are choreographed, lines are run, music is reviewed, then rehearsed, then reviewed again. Allura and Romelle walk in on Veronica and Acxa in the Supply Closet of Bad Decisions, and tell the half of the cast before they realize they now have to explain what both of them were doing trying to get into the Supply Closet of Bad Decisions in the first place. The theater department has a _field day _with that one.

Keith makes eye contact with Lance over their classmates’ heads as they surround and congratulate both new couples, who are smirking and blushing in equal amounts (maybe not equal amounts— Veronica’s expression can most aptly be described as the cat that got the canary, and Romelle seems more disappointed that she didn’t get her turn in the supply closet). Lance sends him a softer smile than his usual confident grin. Keith feels himself flush, but he doesn’t look away, even when Lance’s expression shifts into one he can’t read, eyes soft and tempting in a way he isn’t sure he believes. 

Keith replays that moment again and again in his head until he’s embarrassed himself.

~~~~~

Two weeks before opening night, he finds himself on the floor of the backstage, once again poring over a box of lighting wires and wondering how they’ve managed to get themselves tangled up again.

It’s crunch time now. As usual, everything is in a state of organized chaos and careful shambles. Two actors have gotten sick and the rest of the cast is in a panic trying to rehearse with the understudies, preparing for the worst. Three days ago, one of the freshmen had misplaced the barricade props, which had sent the entire set crew into a frenzy. Coran had taken to showing up with a twitching mustache and several thermoses of a homemade “natural concoction” he called “nunvil” which smelled vaguely like gasoline and raw eggs, and looked a bit like kombucha. Lance and Keith had both tried it once, on a dare—or rather, during one of their inane competitive moments that began as them goading each other and ended as them chugging a glass of nunvil each that Coran had cheerfully poured them (“Impressive, boys!” Coran had said, mustache quivering. “Not many are brave enough to give the ol’ nunvil a try, no matter how healthy it is!”)

(Lance, apparently, had recited the entirety of Rent from memory in half an hour then crashed on the stairwell and slept for two hours. Keith doesn’t remember much from his stint, but he woke up covered in paint and with an entire new backdrop finished.)

So, yes, things were at the crazy stage of production. Keith feels some relief, in his quiet corner with the lighting wires, finally able to step away from the intensity of it all. He’s grown to love it, but it can be overwhelming.

He’s hunched over a knot in another pair of red and blue wires—or, he thinks, squinting, maybe it’s the same pair and they’re inexplicably drawn to each other because they enjoy making Keith’s life _that_ much harder—when a familiar warmth sinks down next to him. He doesn’t have to look up, but he feels the corner of his mouth tug up a little. He’s filled with a vague sense of déjà vu.

“How you doin’ over here, Mullet?”

“I was doing pretty good ‘til you showed up,” The smile in Keith’s voice undercuts his words. The sarcastic back and forth between them doesn’t have to change, no matter how his feelings had, and that pleases him. Lance rolls his eyes and elbows him in the bicep. Keith grimaces at the bony point more than he actually needs to. 

“Yeah, well, you know how much I love ruining your day.” Lance’s response is also belied by the way he leans into Keith’s space, shoulders brushing. As his heart rate accelerates, Keith wonders how they got to this point, when this proximity was natural, where Lance _wanted_ to be in his space. Keith nudges him a little.

“Don’t you have a lot of work to be doing?” Keith asks, if only to get his mind off the three points their bodies are touching—shoulders, hips, knees.

Lance sighs and rolls his neck back in a weary stretch. Keith kinda can’t take his eyes off Lance’s throat, and he kinda wants to punch him for it. “Nah. They’re running scenes without me right now. Romelle’s doing her big song and Allura’s not paying attention to anything else.”

Lance is pouting, and Keith vaguely remembers the first few months of his time in the theater department, when Lance would follow Allura around like a puppy— or a very persistent mosquito. Keith had found it annoying back then. Now he wonders if there had been some envy, mixed into that annoyance. He’d always found Lance attractive, even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself.

Are there still feelings there? It had been a long time, but Keith knew firsthand how long crushes could last, and even though Lance had backed off and now Allura and Romelle were dating, all childhood friends-to-lovers cliché, could it be hurting Lance? Keith thinks back to the scenes between Marius and Cosette, how tender and adoring every touch of Lance’s had been on Allura’s skin, and he feels himself frown. How much of that had been acting?

He pulls away a little, without even noticing. He also doesn’t notice the curious look Lance gives him in response.

“Oh,” Keith says, a little late. He looks back down at the tangled wires in his hands and focuses on trying to get them undone.

Lance nudges him a little, bringing back the contact between them. Keith’s heart flares a little in response. He wonders how much of _this_ he’s overthinking. “What are _you_ doing over here then?”

Keith holds up the wires in response. “Pidge asked me to do some lighting stuff,” he furrows his brows. “Which is basically just the dirty work she can’t be bothered to do herself.”

“Why are you doing it, then?”

Keith shrugs. “Cause the scenery is basically finished? So I’m looking for stuff to do, which is what people call ‘working’ by the way. Not that you’d be too familiar with it.” Lance gasps as though Keith has brutally insulted his mother—which Keith would never do by the way, Josefa McClain-Acosta is the nicest woman in the world and he wouldn’t dare say anything less.

Lance huffs. “Fine. Just for that, I won’t help you with that knot.” A pointed stare has Keith glancing back down at the tangled wires in his hand. Did it get bigger? How the fuck did he make it worse?

“Like you’d be able to untie this,” Keith scoffs. “I’ve been going at it for literally twenty minutes now.”

Lance’s expression flips from mock-offended to salacious in a heartbeat. “You’d be surprised, Mullet-man. I’m really good with my hands.” And he winks.

Keith chokes on his own inhale.

Pidge, who chooses that exact moment to pass by, takes one look at the two of them, Keith hacking up half a lung and Lance smirking smugly, and shakes her head at them. “I hope I never end up like this when I try to flirt,” she says, and continues walking. Keith struggles to get his coughing under control to hopefully say something like “it’s not flirting,” but he’s still struggling to breathe because _what_. He settles for throwing up the bird at her retreating back while Lance cheerfully calls out, “See ya, Pidgey-pie!”

A few moments pass as Keith toggles between trying to control his coughs and choking again as Lance’s wink and suggestive comment replays in his head. Lance shakes his head. “Sheesh, it wasn’t that scandalous, man.” Lance says to no one, and any progress Keith had made in getting his breathing back under control is lost when Lance’s hand comes up to soothingly rub up and down Keith’s back.

Keith’s eyes are watering a bit. Lance seems more amused than worried, but he murmurs, “You need water,” and hoists himself to his feet, patting Keith’s back twice before shuffling off. Keith can’t believe he almost just died because Lance made an innuendo. Half of the words out of Lance’s mouth are innuendos, what is wrong with him? Has being away from Lance for these last several weeks made him that susceptible?

A moment later, Keith’s eyes cross as a water bottle is shoved under his nose. He takes it instinctively, eyes following the motion of Lance sitting back down, this time across from him. “Thanks,” he coughs out, and takes a deep swig.

“No problem. And that totally counts as work, by the way. I went _all_ the way to the classroom for it.” Keith rolls his eyes.

Another long drink of water and Keith’s chest has stopped feeling like it’s about to collapse. He feels a tug in his hand and Keith looks down to see Lance pull the knotted wires out of his grip. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing this mess you made, obviously. How the quiznack did you do this, man?” Keith smiles at the use of the absurd curse substitute invented by the theater teacher. The only people who really use it besides Mr. Wimbledon are Allura, because she’s his niece, Romelle, because they grew up together, and Lance, because he’s Lance. Keith finds it ridiculous, but it’s cute coming from Lance. As are, unfortunately, most things.

“The nicer I am to you, the less you can deny how awesome I am,” Lance continues. “Also, I can show off my legendary knot-untangling skills. There’s a reason my niece asks for me to comb her hair instead of her mom.” He fumbles with the wires for a few extra moments, finally glancing up with an increasingly incredulous expression. “How did you do this? It’s like the Taj Mahal of knots.”

Keith shrugs. “I found it like this.”

Lance just looks doubtful. Keith shrugs again.

They fall silent, Keith resigning himself to finishing with the rest of the wires on the floor until Lance gives up on trying to untangle the ones he’s holding. The murmurs of their classmates around the backstage create a quiet background noise, and Keith relaxes, falling into a mindless routine, almost, very _nearly_, forgetting very near presence of the cause of his heart palpitations. _Almost_.

“Ha!”

Keith jumps. Across from him, Lance is holding out two very neat, separate red and blue wires, expression entirely self-satisfied. Keith’s jaw drops.

“Wha—” he stammers, feeling his face reddening in an odd mixture of admiration and jealousy. “—how—how did you _do_ that?”

Lance drops the wires onto the now almost completely diminished pile between them. Keith will get to them later. Right now he’s just staring in shock. The other boy blows invisible smoke off his finger guns and pretends to tuck them into his pockets, giving Keith a sly smirk. “Told ya, buddy. Skilled fingers.”

“I hate you,” Keith deadpans, giving Lance a very unimpressed look.

And immediately dropping it when Lance returns it with the most adorable pout he has ever seen in his entire life. “Oh, c’mon,” Lance whines, lower lip jutting out in a way that makes Keith want to do something stupid. Like bite it. And also maybe kiss him. Definitely kiss him. “I thought we were _bonding_.”

Ugh. “Ugh.” Keith scowls. “Stop it with that.”

Lance’s pout deepens. “With what?”

“That! You! You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lance sniffs. Keith grumbles and sorts the remaining wires. It’s a quick job now that there are only a few left. He tosses them all in the box next to him.

“You,” Keith gives Lance a pointed look. “are a menace.”

Lance hops to his feet and holds out a hand to help Keith up. Keith takes it, a bit belatedly, and Lance hoists him to his feet. Lance hops a bit on his heels as Keith bends down and picks up the box and begins walking towards the black box. “But a _cute_ menace, right?”

“I’m not answering that, Lance.”

The laughing shout follows him off backstage. “I’ll take it as a yes then!”

It’s not until later, when he’s at home trying to get one of his socks back from Kosmo, that he realizes that Lance had never denied that they were flirting.

~~~~~

So. They were flirting. That was a thing that, if he’s not jumping the gun here (like Shiro has pointed out, he tends to do), might’ve been inadvertently confirmed.

Keith pays careful attention to their interactions over the next two weeks, not that they see that much of each other during that time. The pre-opening night chaos escalates yet again, along with its usual tragedies, and everyone is too busy panicking and problem solving to really hang out outside of their theater class. Even lunch is dedicated to preparing the final touches of the show. Keith figures, maybe, there is a bit of a flirtatious tone to their usual banter, even when it’s cut short, and Lance _does _touch him a lot when they’re near each other. But, he also figures, Lance flirts with anything that moves (seriously, he saw Lance flirt with a _cow_ once), and he’s a touchy person with everyone. Still, there’s that weird look Lance gives him sometimes, the one where his eyes are unreadable, that makes Keith hope, despite it all.

They’re finishing up dress rehearsal, and Keith has to give himself and the other tech people credit, because the set and lighting look _great_. Their theater program isn’t exactly low budget, but it’s also still just a high school, so the stage crew has to get resourceful in their set building. Somehow, one of their crew members, who also managed to fit woodshop into her schedule and is also an apparent set design genius, had managed to design tables and chairs that dismantled and could be reassembled like Legos into other prop furniture. Coran had actually wept when she’d brought in the initial prototype, and Keith thinks that Hunk, their lighting guy who dabbles in mechanical engineering stuff, might’ve actually fallen a little bit in love with her.

Keith hauls the last of the pub furniture offstage and wipes sweat off his forehead. Everyone else has left the stage to change out of costume and Coran is giving out some final notes on where to place the markers on the stage for the opening night’s set up. Keith leans against the wall and sighs, closing his eyes.

“Hey.”

Somehow, he’s less surprised than he used to be at hearing Lance’s voice, even at unexpected times, like now when he’s supposed to be in the dressing room with the other actors. Keith peers at him through one eye. He’s changed out of costume already, shockingly quick, and looks tired and rumpled in a soft grey hoodie. He comes to a stop in front of Keith, close enough that Keith straightens a little, weariness fading. “Hey,” Keith replies.

Lance gives him a small grin. The noises from the stage have quieted, everyone seemingly finished and heading home. “What are you doing out here?” Keith asks. “Don’t the actors usually have some big speech after the dress rehearsal?”

“Yeah,” Lance sighs. “I kinda needed a breather though.”

“Nervous?”

It falls between them differently than the first time Keith had asked Lance this question. Then, it had been surprised, maybe somewhat mocking. They hadn’t yet softened the biting quality to their words. Today, it’s understanding, receptive to the vulnerable look Lance casts up at him through his eyelashes.

“A little. Mostly, I just…” he trails off. Even though the back of the stage is dim, lights mostly shut off as the cast and crew heads home, Keith can see the faint beginnings of a flush forming on Lance’s cheeks. “I hadn’t seen much of you, lately.”

A corner of Keith’s mouth twitches up. “Needed another pep talk?”

Lance huffs a laugh. Neither of them had brought up that night that changed things between them before, even though Keith thought about it often, even more after he came to terms with his feelings. The air between them now feels thick with something, a sweet cloying tension that has Keith’s palms sweating a little. He wants to blame the exertion of moving the props, but he knows it has more to do with Lance’s proximity, and the strange expectation in his rabbiting heart rate.

“I never properly thanked you for that.”

“Huh?”

“I never thanked you properly. When you sat with me, before the show last year. You… that meant a lot.”

Keith shrugs. “I meant what I said then. It was nothing, Lance.”

Lance is already shaking his head before Keith even finishes. “No, listen, I—” He pauses and a myriad of expressions pass over his face before it settles on something decided. He takes a deep breath. “You didn’t have to do that. We both know it. We weren’t exactly— we didn’t get along. Which,” he gives a nervous chuckle, running his hand through his hair so the curls fluff up and give him an even more rumpled look. “I know is probably at least sixty percent my fault. And I’m sorry about that. But you still…"

“Lance,” Keith says softly. This time he’s the one to step forward, unconsciously, so that they’re toe to toe and Lance falls silent. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Lance breathes. Keith feels the lightest of light touches on his arm; both of them look at where Lance’s hand brushes against Keith’s sleeve tentatively, like he’s waiting for Keith to pull back and smack his hand away. Keith feels his breath hitch. He vaguely wonders if he’s imagining this whole encounter as some crazy, stress induced fantasy, but the heat emitting from Lance’s presence feels too real to be a figment of his imagination. After a moment Lance pulls back, letting out an awkward huff of laughter.

Lance keeps his eyes on his own hand, flexing it once, twice. “You really changed how I looked at you, Kogane.” He laughs again then looks away.

Keith feels whiplash at Lance’s sudden withdrawal. Part of him is looking for another meaning in Lance’s words, in how he’s standing, and another part is too cautious to believe it.

“I could say the same about you,” Keith starts carefully. He feels a flutter of panic in his stomach but shoves it down. 

Lance inhales deeply, moving his gaze back up to meet Keith’s. He’s only a few inches taller, yet somehow it feels like a massive distance. Keith has to crane his neck a bit to meet his eyes. The tension in the air reaches a new level— he can feel it sizzling across his skin in the way the hairs on your arm will stand straight up right before the lightning strikes.

He must be dreaming. That’s the only explanation for this. But it looks like Lance is leaning down, tilting his head minutely to the side. His eyes flick down and back up once. Keith has seen enough cheesy rom-coms, read enough corny romance novels, to know what that glance means, and his heart rockets out of his own chest and somewhere into the rafters.

Keith’s eyes are sliding shut, he can feel himself rising up on his toes, Lance dipping down slightly to meet him, their noses brushing ever so slightly—

A door slams open, extra light flooding into the dark theatre. Lance straightens back up like he’s been electrocuted, shuffling several steps back and taking on a sudden interest in his hoodie strings. His face is a few shades darker than normal, a blush spreading from his cheeks all the way to his ears and the back of his neck.

Keith stays where he is, face hot and limbs like jelly, lips still parted like he’s going to say something… or kiss someone. Because… that was what was going to happen, wasn’t it? His brain is restarting, still fighting through a haze as he tries to figure out if what he thinks was happening was actually happening and not one of his daydreams. Based on the way Lance can’t look at him, he thinks it was, in fact, very real— the thought of which has Keith reeling.

The cause of the commotion is one of the other set designers, who’d forgotten to put away one of the paintbrushes near the backdrop. She gives a little wave as she passes, none the wiser to what she interrupted.Keith and Lance return the gesture casually like they hadn’t just been about to kiss and possibly ruin everything.

Once the set designer is gone again, a few moments pass in awkward silence before Lance coughs into his hand. “I guess I’ll… see you tomorrow, then?”

Keith clears his throat, puts his hands in his pockets in a vain attempt to act casual then takes them out again when he realizes there’s no way for him to look casual at all with his face this red. “Yeah, uh, see you tomorrow. Break a leg.”

Lance pulls his mouth into a close-lipped half smile before awkwardly brushing past Keith towards the exit. Keith releases the breath he’d been holding and collapses against the pub set piece as soon as the door clicks shut behind him. Oh my _god._

~~~~~

Despite not being able to sleep until the wee hours of the morning due to replaying the events of the evening non-stop in his head, the next day arrives faster than expected. It’s opening night, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for Keith to find Lance and talk to him about what happened, which… he really, really wants to do. He can’t stop thinking about it.

He isn’t sure what he would say. But after his initial panic, there were only so many conclusions he could come too, and as convinced as he was that Lance couldn’t possibly return his feelings, he’s not oblivious enough to deny what was about to happen before they were interrupted.

And yet, there’s too much to be done as the actors go through hair and makeup and the crew performs the last-minute light and sound checks and prepare everything for the scene changes. Lance doesn’t look at him as he rushes around backstage, even with Keith’s intense stare on him, and it only serves to confuse and frustrate Keith even more.

At least all of it doesn’t matter once the curtain goes up.

Keith watches it all from the wings, following along in the script and flipping switches as directed. Besides the occasional set change, most of the time he can simply watch. Marius doesn’t appear until late in the first act, so for some scenes Lance fills in the background ensemble. He pours everything he has into a simple inn patron or a sleazy sailor propositioning prostitutes.

But once Marius makes his entrance, Keith is transfixed. Every emotion that plays out on Lance’s face, every note he hits, each line he delivers—Lance had said before that he was born to play Marius. Keith had seen how good he was in rehearsal. But none of it had _anything_ on the Lance on stage tonight.

The only time Lance falters is at the end of A Heart Full of Love. Up until then, his gaze had been fixed on Allura, who was doing such an incredible job of playing the innocent Cosette that Keith could almost forget the time she judo-flipped a guy during gym class for trying to cop a feel. The song is ending, and just as Lance sings the last note, his gaze shifts just behind Allura and focuses, briefly, on the spot where Keith is standing. It lasts for just for a second, barely enough time for them to lock eyes before he looks back at Allura and follows his cue to hide from the approaching “Valjean”, but it rockets through Keith like a shockwave. With the bright stage lights shining down, Keith can make out the faint hint of a blush on Lance’s cheeks.

It’s the first eye contact he and Lance have had all night. Acxa has to elbow him twice to get his attention for the next scene change.

Before long, it’s the intermission. The actors are dispersed somewhat, going over lines or choreography while the crew members prepare the stage for the second act. Allura and Romelle disappear, probably to a not-so-secret location if Allura’s face during Romelle’s jaw-dropping performance of “On My Own” is any indication. Keith debates going over to Lance, but he vanished while Keith was pulling set pieces on the stage. Whatever. He can’t avoid Keith forever.

Keith grunts as he tries to lift an awkwardly sized box to move to the stage. It’s probably weighted down with something, for staging purposes, but it means it’s downright impossible for him to lift. He tries to put his arm around it, and stops as Hunk crouches down across from him on the other side, smiling at him in a friendly way. “Need some help?”

“Uh, sure.”

Hunk is built big and sturdy, like a linebacker, if linebackers wore engineering gloves and talked about French pastries with hearts in their eyes. He practically lifts the entire box on his own—Keith grabs the corner of it and tries to hoist it up so he can feel like he’s helping, but Hunk is significantly taller and shockingly strong, and after walking a couple paces with his hand on the edge of the box, Keith gives up and settles for walking beside Hunk and telling him where to take it.

“Thanks,” Keith says when Hunk sets the box down on the tape marking its position on the stage. Hunk straightens up and cracks his back with a sigh.

“No problem, buddy.”

Keith shoves his hands in his pockets and marches offstage, staring at the floor. Hunk falls into step beside him. Neither of them say anything as they make it back into the wings. Keith grabs the clipboard Pidge holds out to him as they pass by and takes a deep breath, bracing himself for Coran’s announcement that the second act is about to start, when a hand squeezes his shoulder, bringing him to a halt. He turns around and meets Hunk’s sheepish gaze.

Suddenly, he remembers that Hunk is Lance’s best friend.

“I uh, gotta head back to the lighting booth soon but I wanted to say… you should talk to him.”

He doesn’t have to specify who he’s talking about. Keith looks down at the clipboard. ”I want to, he grumbles. “He’s avoiding me.”

“He’s scared.”

“He shouldn’t be.” Keith glares even more intensely at the wood of the clipboard. He could be burning holes in it. “I wouldn’t—I mean. I’m not exactly subtle.”

Hunk laughs. “Tell me about it. But then, neither is he. And it took both of you long enough to get the hint.”

Keith feels a flutter of excitement at this indirect confirmation. What happened last night basically gave Lance’s feelings away, but hearing it from Hunk is different. More solid. If Hunk knows, then it must be true.

“Just trust me on this,” Hunk continues, patting Keith’s shoulder a couple of times. “He’s freaking out right now, so it’s gonna have to be up to you.”

Keith nods as Coran gives the two-minute warning. Hunk grins back at him. “Good. I gotta get back to the lighting booth. Next time I see you…” He trails off, raising his eyebrows pointedly, and Keith flushes.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

Hunk laughs and ambles off as Keith tries to get his flush under control. The other cast members scurry into their spots. Keith spots Lance several feet away, lining up into place for the opening number of act two. This time when they make eye contact, Lance holds it, eyes wide.

_Idiot_. Keith feels a corner of his mouth lift. Lance, if possible, looks even more unsure.

The curtains open, and the second act begins, Lance proceeding out onto the stage with the rest of the actors in the scene. Keith turns back to manning the carriage set piece, waiting for his cue to push it out on stage, resolute.

The second act goes by even faster than the first. Throughout the entirety of it, Keith and Lance keep catching each other’s gaze, as if the initial eye contact backstage was all it took to open the floodgates. With each one, Keith feels his determination—and impatience—grow. The standing ovation at the end of the final _Do You Hear the People Sing _is well deserved, but Keith sort of wishes the audience would hurry up so the final curtain call would be finished and he could get Lance alone. Even the techs in the black box stand and clap as the actors on stage bow with ear-splitting grins, and some people (the McClain-Acostas, Keith is sure) even throw flowers up on the stage, nailing Veronica between the eyes and getting a flower stuck in Lance’s hair.

The curtains close and the actors shuffle off the stage. Keith waits in the wings, shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously. He doesn’t have a lot of time before the families come to dote on their kids, and he knows there’s no way he’ll be able to snag Lance away from his family long enough for anything, not to mention Shiro and Adam are in the crowd and will want to talk to him too.

The second the brown hair and freckled face makes its appearance, Keith shoots a hand out and grabs its owner by the elbow, ignoring the responding yelp and practically frog marching to a secluded area behind one of the curtains.

“Keith, what—”

“Sh!”

Lance snaps his mouth shut and stares at Keith as the other boy leans forward so they’re only inches apart. “Before you say anything,” Keith says, reaching out and getting a grip on the flap of Lance’s costume jacket. “I need to say something first.”

Lance nods.

“That day I sat with you before the show,” Keith starts. “It changed things for me too. You already know that. I never wanted to fight with you in the beginning, but I didn’t know how _act_ around you. You were loud, and obnoxious, and funny, and talented, and everyone liked you, even _me_, even though you seemed to be trying your hardest to make me hate you. I couldn’t hate you.”

Lance’s hand find purchase on Keith’s arms, holding him in place. Keith tightens his grip on Lance’s jacket. “I didn’t hate you then, and I definitely didn’t hate you afterwards. You were always so interesting, and bright, and when you were performing, I just—I couldn’t take my eyes off you. And somehow we became friends, and instead of getting used to you, I—it got worse, what I was feeling. And it didn’t go away. It doesn’t go away. I think I convinced myself that everything I felt didn’t matter, because someone like you couldn’t feel the same way about me, but then—then yesterday happened, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and you not looking at me was driving me crazy, and then you looking at me made it even worse, and I just need to make sure that you were going to kiss me, Lance.” Keith’s breath catches, and when he speaks again, it’s quiet, scarcely more than a whisper. “Because I can’t kiss you until I know for sure. And…_fuck_. I really want to.”

Lance blinks, dazedly. He licks his lips. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah, I was gonna kiss you.”

“Good,” Keith breathes, and uses his grip on the jacket to pull Lance in.

~~~~~

The one bad thing about kissing your longtime crush after the opening night of a big musical where all your friends and family are present, is that you don’t really get a lot of time to kiss your longtime crush before said friends and family flood backstage to hug and congratulate you and also monopolize all of your time.

Keith sighs for the umpteenth time, as Shiro, also for the umpteenth time, ruffles his hair and grins at him proudly, and Adam, Shiro’s fiancé, chuckles under his breath. He’s happy his brother is happy, he really is, but Lance is seven feet away surrounded by loud, enthusiastic people that have his brown skin and bright blue eyes, and he still has the flower from the curtain call stuck in his hair. Maybe Keith is the only one who noticed, but even as Lance beams and hoists a little boy with a missing front tooth and his same curly hair onto his back, his mouth is still a plump, bitten pink and his gaze keeps flicking Keith’s way. Every few minutes, a cast or crew member passes by with their family and congratulates Keith on a job well done. Keith wants to grab Lance and disappear immediately.

“I’m so proud of you, Keith,” Shiro says, _again_. “I can’t get over the backdrop for the barricade scene. The detail on that—”

“Takashi,” Adam interrupts with amusement. He gives Keith a sympathetic look. “You said that already.”

Shiro brushes him off like he said nothing. “Whatever, it’s true. And he can stand to hear it a few times more, it’s not like he has anything better to do.”

Keith doesn’t stop himself in time. He makes a face, momentarily forgetting that Shiro _knows_ him, and also that Shiro will not hesitate to call him out.

Sure enough, Shiro straightens up like his old commander had just walked into the room. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Keith says hastily.

Shiro is already shaking his head. “Nuh-uh. Don’t play slick with me, kiddo. I saw that expression.” He raises an eyebrow, a move which Adam always teased made him look as old as his grey hair looked to be. “You got an after party to go to or something?”

“The cast party isn’t until Saturday after the last show,” Keith mutters hunching in on his crossed arms. “I don’t have plans.”

Shiro’s eyes narrow. “You’re lying.”

Keith splutters indignantly. “No I’m not!” His protest does absolutely nothing, as Shiro only looks all the more certain.

“I _raised_ you, buddy. I can tell when you’re lying to me. You have a tell.”

Keith feels his jaw drop. He looks between Adam and Shiro before finally settling on, “I do _not _have a tell. Adam, tell Shiro I don’t have a tell.”

Adam shrugs. “Sorry, kid. But you totally have a tell.”

Keith throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Unbelievable.”

“Keith,” Shiro says patiently—or rather, in his patient, I’m-a-mature-adult tone of voice that fools everyone who isn’t Keith or Adam, who saw him frantically throw his prosthetic arm onto a grease fire once in a panic. “This would be a lot less painful if you were just _honest_ with us and told us what exactly you’re hiding from us. We _are_ your legal guardians after all—”

“I _literally_ had to teach you both how to do your own laundry properly.”

“—so I think we have the right to be concerned for your safety.” Shiro finishes as if Keith hadn’t interrupted. Keith shoots Adam a pleading look. Adam just pushes his glasses up his nose and peers at Keith before leaning back and announcing, confidently, “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”

“I’m disowning the both of you.”

“A boy?” Shiro blinks. “Really?”

“I haven’t confirmed that.”

“It’s definitely a boy,” Adam says. “Look at him. The gay is coming off of him in waves.”

Keith didn’t think it could get any worse, yet… here they are. “Couldn’t we go back to talking about the brushstrokes on the Paris backdrop?” He asks, somewhat desperately.

“Wait,” Shiro holds out a hand. “Is it _a_ boy? Or is it _the _boy? You know the one, babe?”

“The one with a smile like sunshine personified and freckles that put the night sky to shame?”

Keith facepalms so hard he wonders if he gave himself a concussion.

“Why, Adam, I think it might—”

“S’cuse me?” a voice interrupts. Keith, Shiro, and Adam all turn around to face a pleasantly smiling Lance, finally changed out of costume and miraculously McClain-Acosta free. Keith represses the urge to grab him by the hand and bolt.

“Lance! It’s good to see you.” Shiro grins and shakes Lance’s hand. Lance grins back.

“Good to see you too, Shiro, Adam.” Adam smiles, but behind his glasses Keith can see his mind taking in and analyzing everything from Lance’s posture to the few centimeters of space between them. “I hate to interrupt, but I was wondering if I could maybe borrow Keith for a minute?”

Adam and Shiro exchange raised eyebrows. Keith is convinced Shiro is about to make an embarrassing comment, either a joke or some weirdly paternal warning, but Adam suddenly gives Keith a subtle wink, takes Shiro by the elbow, and says, “Yeah, of course, Lance. Keith, we’ll be in the car.”

Lance’s smile widens as he bids the two men goodbye and pulls Keith along by the wrist. Keith sends Adam a thank you look with his eyes. Maybe Adam lives _do_ matter.

“Thank God you showed up,” Keith sighs as Lance pulls him along, past the families and through the door into the hallway. “I swear, they were trying to drive me—_mphf!”_

Everything Keith was about to say disappears from his mind entirely as Lance abruptly tugs him to a halt, pushes him against a wall, and kisses him. Their first kiss had been shy and soft, the lightest of touches and barely there brushing of hands against each others’ jaws, cheeks, waist. This one is nothing like that.

Lance tugs Keith flush against him, one hand sliding up between Keith’s shoulder blades and the other cradling his face. Keith sighs as Lance presses one kiss, then two, then three against his lips, pulling back each time before they get too deep until Keith is chasing after him. Keith tangles a hand in Lance’s curls and bites down, gently on Lance’s lower lip. Lance pulls back suddenly.

“Sorry, are you—”

“I have literally never been more fine in my life,” Lance rasps out. “I just need a moment cause I think my legs turned to jello sometime within the last two minutes.”

Sure enough, Keith feels Lance trembling under his hands. It makes him flush and burn with pleasure at the same time, knowing he was the one to make Lance react this way. It also doesn’t help that he also somewhat feels like his legs are going to give out underneath him.

They’re both clutching to each other to remain upright, and the realization makes Keith give a startled laugh. Lance looks up at him, a small smile already appearing at the sound. “What?”

“I just… didn’t expect this sort of ending to today when I fell asleep last night.”

Lance laughs at that too, loud and bright. “Tell me about it.” He tugs on a strand of hair falling on the side of Keith’s face. “I thought you were gonna avoid me.”

“You’re an idiot,” Keith grumbles. “I would’ve kissed you yesterday if we hadn’t gotten interrupted. Hell, we could’ve been doing this all day if you hadn’t avoided me like the plague until I basically cornered you.”

Lance pouts. “Come on, I was panicking! Cut me some slack, babe.”

Keith blushes at the term of endearment. In an attempt to hide it, he reaches up and pulls the flower out of Lance’s hair, letting it flutter to the floor. “I wanted to do that for the last twenty minutes.”

“Well, I have you beat.” Lance runs both his hands through Keith’s hair, settling at the nape of his neck as his fingers play with the strands. “I’ve been wanting to do _this_ for like... two years.”

“I should’ve known that’s what all the mullet jokes were about,” Keith mutters. It feels soothing. He lets his eyes shut.

“Yeah, I wasn’t subtle.”

“Me either.”

“We’re both kinda stupid,” Lance says ruefully. Keith nods, then sighs.

“Our families are probably waiting for us,” he points out, opening his eyes, voice tinged with regret.

“Yeah, probably.” Lance agrees.

“We should probably go.”

“Mhm.”

“…”

“_Or._”

Keith already feels a grin form at the suggestive tone Lance’s voice takes.

“Or, what?”

“There’s a Supply-Closet-Of-Bad-Decisions right behind us, and I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of insults to make up for.”

Keith ends up having to catch a ride home with Lance.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all liked this! I love these two idiots with all my heart. Feel free to follow me on [Tumblr](http://madness-and-brilliancee.tumblr.com/)  
or my [VLD Twitter](https://twitter.com/sapphicsirena)!
> 
> As always, please, please please leave a comment if you enjoyed. Your encouragement literally means the world and keeps me writing.


End file.
